"Miss Mackenzie would rather not tell you," said Ingram. "The fact is,
the noble mountaineers of these districts have had to fall back on the
Jew's harp. The ministers allow that instrument to be used--I suppose
because there is a look of piety in the name. But the dancing doesn't
get very mad when you have two or three young fellows playing a
strathspey on a bit of trembling wire."

"That teffle of a piper John!" growled Mackenzie under his breath;
and so the Maighdean-mhara lightly sped on her way, opening out the
various headlands of the islands, until at last she got into the
narrows by Eilean-Aird-Meinish, and ran up the long arm of the sea
to Mevaig.

They landed and went up the rocks. They passed two or three small
white houses overlooking the still, green waters of the sea, and then,
following the line of a river, plunged into the heart of a strange
and lonely district, in which there appeared to be no life. The
river-track took them up a great glen, the sides of which were about
as sheer as a railway-cutting. There were no trees or bushes about,
but the green pasture along the bed of the valley wore its brightest
colors in the warm sunlight, and far up on the hillsides the browns
and crimsons of the heather and the silver-gray of the rocks trembled
in the white haze of the heat. Over that again the blue sky, as still
and silent as the world below.

They wandered on, content with idleness and a fine day. Mr. Mackenzie
was talking with some little loudness, so that Lavender might hear,
of Mr. John Stuart Mill, and was anxious to convey to Ted Ingram
that a wise man, who is responsible for the well-being of his
fellow-creatures, will study all sides of all questions, however